Recent advances in and the increased number of Radio Frequency (RF)-based systems has escalated manufacturing efforts to design antennas more suitable for use with such systems. For example, antennas may be found on vehicles or aircrafts. Several requirements are needed to meet antenna design constraints, including bandwidth and size. Moreover, antennas require adequate space to ensure optimal operation and performance. Designing antennas for vehicle or aircraft has been difficult, as the design and aerodynamic constraints for such vehicles, make the space for an antenna limited. Accordingly, it would be practical and economic to use existing space on vehicles or aircrafts to design antennas to avoid space restrictions. One example of a usable surface would be the glass surfaces on such vehicles.
Several examples of antennas have been researched, including passive transparent antenna designs. Some examples include H. J. Song, T. Y. Hsu, D. F. Sievenpiper, H. P. Hsu, J. Schaffner, and E. Yasan, “A Method for Improving the Efficiency of Transparent Film Antennas,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propag. Lett., Vol. 7, 2008, pp. 753-756; J. Hautcoeur, F. Colombel, X. Castel, M. Himdi, and E. M. Cruz, “Performance of Transparent Monopole Antenna Versus Meshed Silver Layer (AgGL),” 2010 Proceeding of the Fourth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), Barcelona, Apr. 12-16, 2010; A. Katsounaros, Y. Hao, N. Collings, and W. A. Crossland, “Optically Transparent Ultra-Wideband Antenna,” Electronics Letts., Vol. 45, No. 14, Jul. 2, 2009. pp. 722-723; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,847,753, B2,7,233,296 and 7,427,961.
Additionally, optically transparent transistors have been described by A. Suresh, P. Wellenius, V. Baliga, H. Luo, L. M. Lunardi, and J. Muth, “Fast All-transparent Integrated Circuits Based On Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide Thin-film Transistors,” IEEE Electron Device Letts,” Vol. 31, No. 4, April 2010, pp. 317-319; C.-T. Lee, W.-M. Shien, H.-Y. Lee, “Zno:Al Based Transparent Thin Film Transistors,” Proceedings of the 21st Annual Meeting of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society, 2008 LEOS, Acapulco, Nov. 9-18, 2008, pg. 65; and S. Ju, A. Facchetti, et al., “Fabrication of Fully Transparent Nanowire transistors for Transparent and Flexible Electronics,” Nature Nanotechnology 2, pp. 378-384, 2007. These references do not describe antennas used with a transparent substrate.
Antennas have also been proposed with graphene. An example is described in M. Dragoman, A. A. Muller, D. Dtragoman, F. Coccetti, and R. Plana, “Terahertz Antenna Based On Graphene,” J. of Applied Physics, Vol. 107, No. 10, 104313, 2010.
None of these examples describes an optically transparent RF functioning surface. Therefore, a need exists for methods, systems, and devices that include optically transparent active circuits with optically transparent passive electromagnetic structures, such as antennas, for use in or on a surface.